are the others realy that evil?

[danm_999]

Could you please give some reference in the text for this? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm genuinely interested where this is stated in the novels.

Tormund refers to the Others as the Wights "masters".

[FanTasy]

Tormund refers to the Others as the Wights "masters".

In ADWD? In one of the Jon chapters I suppose. Is he referring to that they are herding/using the wights or that they are made by them?

[danm_999]

In ADWD? In one of the Jon chapters I suppose. Is he referring to that they are herding/using the wights or that they are made by them?

He indicates they're creating them, because people dying of natural causes (sickness, wounds), including one of his sons, suddenly rise as Wights when the Others are nearby.

Previously we had only seem people killed by Others rising as Wights (Waymar Royce, Small Paul), but it appears they can make anyone who dies for any reason rise from the dead.

[FanTasy]

He indicates they're creating them, because people dying of natural causes (sickness, wounds), including one of his sons, suddenly rise as Wights when the Others are nearby.

Previously we had only seem people killed by Others rising as Wights (Waymar Royce, Small Paul), but it appears they can make anyone who dies for any reason rise from the dead.

Okay, thanks. Do you have a quote? I don't have ADWD at hand ...

[danm_999]

Lucky I've got an e-book version :P

The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”

“Did they trouble you on your way south?” “They never came in force, if that’s your meaning, but they were with us all the same, nibbling at our edges. We lost more outriders than I care to think about, and it was worth your life to fall behind or wander off. Every nightfall we’d ring our camps with fire. They don’t like fire much, and no mistake. When the snows came, though … snow and sleet and freezing rain, it’s bloody hard to find dry wood or get your kindling lit, and the cold … some nights our fires just seemed to shrivel up and die. Nights like that, you always find some dead come the morning. ’Less they find you first. The night that Torwynd … my boy, he …” Tormund turned his face away.

“I know,” said Jon Snow.

Tormund turned back. “You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?”

[FanTasy]

Lucky I've got an e-book version :P

The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”

“Did they trouble you on your way south?” “They never came in force, if that’s your meaning, but they were with us all the same, nibbling at our edges. We lost more outriders than I care to think about, and it was worth your life to fall behind or wander off. Every nightfall we’d ring our camps with fire. They don’t like fire much, and no mistake. When the snows came, though … snow and sleet and freezing rain, it’s bloody hard to find dry wood or get your kindling lit, and the cold … some nights our fires just seemed to shrivel up and die. Nights like that, you always find some dead come the morning. ’Less they find you first. The night that Torwynd … my boy, he …” Tormund turned his face away.

“I know,” said Jon Snow.

Tormund turned back. “You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?”

Thanks! I guess it is still open to interpretation if the white walkers are the agent that causes the wightifying process, or that it is the cold that preserves and animates the dead and causes the white walkers to appear. Wights and white walkers both have blue 'eyes' (or in the case of Thistle who has no eyes there is a blue light in empty eye sockets) so there is definitely a connection.

[Swordsaint]

Tormund turned back. “You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?”

This ^^ just adds more proof of the AA prophecy. He'll have a sword soon that can cut cold.

[the trees have eyes]

GRRM is not telling ... on another thread I suggested Bran could be as terrified as he was because the three-eyed crow showed him what he (Bran) is to become. Bran looked into the heart of winter, and maybe he saw himself there - and he didn't like what he saw or what he became.

It is right after this vision Bran names Summer. Apparently this vision was needed to understand why he should name his wolf as he did.

If Bran is terrified by what the three-eyed crow shows him he is to become - namely a tree as you suggest - why is he so keen to go to the three-eyed crow and why, when he arrives does he still hope the three-eyed crow will help him to walk again?

"North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

Now you know, the crow whispered, as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.

"Why?", Bran said not understanding, falling, falling.

Because winter is coming.

He sees beyond the curtain and sees what winter means, what the threat is. The three-eyed crow appeared to Jojen as well as Bran and Jojen specifically comes to winterfell to break the chains that hold the "winged wolf" (Bran) and to guide him to the three-eyed crow. You can argue that somehow it's a trap and both Jojen and Bran are dupes of Brynden (another human) and the Children, that greenseers are bad. It sems far more likely that Brynden is his mentor and will train him for his role in combating the threat that is brewing.

[the trees have eyes]

Hardhome was first destroyed with fire, and the current people are eating their dead. The first is very clearly not the others, and the second is simple starvation. Those people are dying without any help from the others.

We aren't sure what happens, but Sam's group wasn't attacked. And screams would likely happen if the others were dragging them to saftey, or even just walked by. As they would happen if the people decided to try and attack the others. We aren't sure why the other approached Sam's group but again, he didn't attack.

What we've seen so far is more in keeping with knights who kill peasents who try and attack them. Others get attacked by someone who has "no chance", and Other kills the attacker.

"Dead things in the woods, dead things in the water" - Cotter Pyke's letter to Jon.

Snowflakes swirled from a dark sky and ashes rose to meet them, the grey and the while whirling round each other as flaming arrows arced above a wooden wall and dead things shambled silent through the cold, beneath a great grey cliff where fires burned inside a hundred caves. Then the wind rose and the white mist came sweeping in, impossibly cold, and one by one the fires went out. Afterward only the skulls remained.

Death thought Melisandre, the skulls are death. - Melisandre's vision in the flames

If you don't accept there is any connection between the wights and the Others then sure, you can say they have nothing to do with what is happening at Hardhome but I think the two are clealry linked and that bit about the white mist is particularly telling, specially when you link it with Tormund's speech to Jon (Danm_999 put an excellent post quoting this).

I don't really know what to say about your post that the survivors of the Fist of the First Men were screaming as the Others dragged them to safety except that it is purely contrary!

I would like to know why the Nights Watch only have three horn calls - one for rangers returning, two for Wildlings and three for Others. If the Others and wights aren't connected, who not four calls? On the fist when they were attacked by the wights they sounded the horn three times. Everyone knows what that call means. When Sam sits down in the snow, Grenn tells him to get up, "You'll freeze or the Others will get you, Sam, get up!". Old Nan tells the tale of how The Others came leading hosts of the slain. The two come together and the NW don't really seem to have bothered with any battle calles to distinguish between them. If there is one the second is likely to be near and both are hostile. And sure enough, after the Others kill Waymar Royce he rises as a wight, after the battle on the fist and the pursuit back to Crasters, the stragglers are stalked by the wights and at least one Other who neutralises their most effective defense - the torch - kills the most dangerous opponent first (largest) in small Paul but doesn't count on Sam having obsidian.

As with Waymar Royce the Other does not have to approach Grenn, Sam and small Paul. He is stalking them and confronts them after they have fallen behind the rearguard and after Small Paul has been forced to put Sam down as he is too tired to carry him any longer. He orchestrates the whole situation and appears when they are isolated and at their most vulnerable.

I'm sure the explanation behind the Otheres will be sutably interesting but attempts to blame the wights on the COTF and to blame men rather than the Others for instigating any conflict between the two just seem unsupportable.

[Tom Hepplewhite]

Damned relativists. They're pure evil.

[Eyron]

The Children fought against the Others in their first appearance on the side of men during the Long Night.

This I don't recall reading. If it is there but I have not found it I apologize. I do recall the last hero having to search for the Children for years though.

Since then, the Children provided the Night's Watch with obsidian daggers every year, as Sam finds from ancient Night's Watch records at Castle Black. Obsidian daggers are used to kill Others, and the fact they're continuing to do this after the War for the Dawn proves which side of the conflict they're on.

This is not war, but yes they probably helped the humans save up on obsidian. The daggers were given during the Age of Heroes and then stopped at some point.

Since their return, the Children have been supporting Bloodraven, who also opposes the Wights and the Others, demonstrated by his first scene with Bran as the Three Eyed Crow, where he points him to the Lands of Always Winter, and tells him that is why he must live, because "Winter is Coming".

This is not war either.

Bloodraven wargs Mormont's raven and gives Jon critical advice, for example; how to kill the wight that attacks Mormont (Burn! Burn! Burn!).

He does, but this does not constitute a war. It was for self-defense.

The Children's cave wards off Wights, and Leaf burns the Wights pursuing Bran's group.

Yes, this is a sort of defense, and could be seen as part of warfare if the cave is under siege or similar.

These statements are not proof that the Children had always warred with the Others though. We don't know anything about any wars before men came to Westeros, or what has been going on beyond the Wall the last 8000 years. By your responses it seems you think that I believe the Children are allies to the Others, I don't and never said so.

That's my whole point though, they have in part an antagonistic and cooperative relationship. Like with men, they're capable of conflict, but they're also capable of co-existence.

The Others have not demonstrated an ability to co-exist with any other race, except through the extremely unclear baby-sacrifice with Craster (and then, it's not clear if the Others are leaving Craster alone for this reason, or if they're bothering with him at all yet).

Of the four sentient races in ASOIAF, they're the only race to have failed to do this. In fact, they're appearance historically and presently causes the formation of a coalition of every single other sentient race against them.

What I argue is that we don't have information about what the Others have been doing for 8000 years, which of the Old races they have been in contact with if any, or how any contacts have been handled. I think it is strange to say that the Others evidently never treated with anyone ever, when we know next to nothing about them, where they come from, what they are or why they have come.

The story of the Night's King says differently, and Craster's wives say Craster keeps them safe by the offerings to the Others. Why did they not kill Craster if they are intent on killing all humans?

The history of the Others stretches from the War of the Dawn, to their reappearance in the present. There's no evidence of them treating in that.

There is no evidence of the Others doing anything whatsoever for 8000 years. That does not mean they have done nothing at all during those years, only that there are no records of them encountering humans. There is no evidence of them being hostile for 8000 years either, since humans have not heard from them.

No time for the rest, perhaps I'll get back to it tomorrow.

[danm_999]

There is no evidence of the Others doing anything whatsoever for 8000 years. That does not mean they have done nothing at all during those years, only that there are no records of them encountering humans. There is no evidence of them being hostile for 8000 years either, since humans have not heard from them.

No time for the rest, perhaps I'll get back to it tomorrow.

I think where we fundamentally disagree is on the basis of what's been shown.

I feel that since every time the Others have appeared, and the intervening period of 8000 years where they were absent, it's very clear that men and the Children worked together against them. The Children fought with men during the Long Night, the Last Hero sought out the Children to help him, the Children are rumoured to have helped building the Wall, the Children would annually deliver the only substance so far proven to kill Others to the Night's Watch, I'm not really seeing how the Children and the Other's relationship can be otherwise characterised.

Now, Martin may dump some new lore on us in the next two books that shows the Others and Children have had secret collusion, or a more cooperative past, in which case my point won't work, but the point I'm making is, there's no evidence of that so far, so until that happens, and because the Others have never worked or cooperated or practised diplomacy with any other sentient race, unlike every other sentient race in the series, I label them evil

[Mulled Wino]

Could you please give some reference in the text for this? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm genuinely interested where this is stated in the novels.

Theres more evidence than not, i mean, why else vurn the dead? I dont remember anyone else being assumed to create the wights north of the wall. Plus, woght dont happen south of the wall where the others cant travel. Have you read all the books?